A quick question

Which of the foolowing is correct, please?

a. Ten days seems a short time.
b. Ten days seem a short time.

I tried entering both versions into MS Word and both were accepted. Is it really so?

Thanks !!

Both work syntactically - the first, because 'ten days' is viewed as a single unit; the second, because there is more than one day, so the verb is plural. My personal preference would be for 'a' though.

Thanks, stormboy!!

I also prefer 'a'. Although both are correct, I think it's probably more usual to see 'ten days' as a singular period of time rather than as a plural number of days.

This example sits half way between two clear cases. Case 1:

(a) Ten days isn't enough.
(b) Ten days aren't enough.

I would say both are perfectly normal, and mean the same thing.

Case 2:

(a) Ten days is such a short time.
(b) Ten days are such a short time.

Here, I would say (b) is definitely wrong. So I have a distinct preference for (a) in the OP, like everybody else; but I wouldn't call it definitely wrong.

Thanks, everyone.

Here, I would say (b) is definitely wrong.

I agree but do you know why? To me it sounds awkward, but that's hardly a good reason....

#5 -- The fact that you call it "a short time" indicates that you're thinking about it as a unit, a period of time seven days long, not as seven individual days. So "are" is inconsistent with the rest of the sentence.

What Vinny said.

Cheers, guys.

I would also say "a" because "ten days" in this context is a single unit of time. Incidentally, I would probably say "ten days seems like a short time", but I think that "like" is an Americanism here.

Yes, I thought that too. I'd say "seems like" or "seems to be."